


on loving a botanist

by InRetrospect



Category: Star Trek, either tos or aos, whichever floats your starship
Genre: Gen, M/M, Poetry, which was probably a terrible decision considering characterization but you know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-01
Updated: 2014-05-01
Packaged: 2018-01-21 10:58:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1548194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InRetrospect/pseuds/InRetrospect
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A physicist reflecting on the relationship between science, poetry, and accidentally really, really liking your helmsman.</p><p>
  <i>You were a pilot first to me,</i>
  <br/>
  <i>And I saw your eyes absorb starlight as you led our ship along.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	on loving a botanist

_On Loving A Botanist_

An astrophysics professor of mine, when I was young,  
Once lectured that biology was the poet’s science  
With a derisive sound caught in his throat.  
I’d laughed then, as I’d spread out equations and variables on the holograms beneath my hands.  
There was not enough room left for pretty words, I’d thought.  
I thought halfway out of the building, though-  
Why would you dispel love from your life’s work?  
Is science not something you could love?  
(I hoped that question wouldn’t be on my midterm.)  
I never discovered the answer until I met you.

You were a pilot first to me,  
And I saw your eyes absorb starlight as you led our ship along.  
Then you unfurled and lashed out-  
I think you must have to love yourself to move  
Like metal is an extension of your body,  
To wrap it into your skin and make peace with a pathogen and not let it rip you inside out.  
I only learned later that you were a biologist,  
But by then I’d seen your love pouring out of you like a raincloud  
And you’d laid out the universe how equations never could.

I wish I was a poet, and I try very hard to be.  
After our first disaster together, I barricaded myself in with Tolstoy  
(Because I’d let physics down unforgivably)  
And tried to conduct what beauty I could still see.  
It didn’t work- I have Tolstoy’s volume, but not his eloquence.  
My words got tangled up in my tongue and in my hands  
Before I could communicate the galaxy expanding in my chest and fusing to my heart.

You pretend not to be a poet.  
I see you sweep away haiku and tanka from your bridge screen,  
But I try to read a few between the branches of your fingers anyways.  
Sometimes you speak in poetry,  
Murmur only a few syllables  
That could cradle an entire planet in their poignancy.  
You taught me to love singularities again.

I will speak, will run, will love the length of the galaxy  
Until I discover how physics and poetry can coexist.  
I see you rest your plants in your hands  
And I know you already have.

_Pavel Andreievich Chekov_


End file.
